This is not a test. This is your Emergency Broadcast System
announcing the commencement of the Annual Purge sanctioned by
the US government. Weapons of Class 4 and lower have
been authorized for use during the Purge. All other weapons are
restricted. Government Officials of ranking 10 have been granted
immunity from the Purge and shall not be harmed. Commencing at
the siren, any and all crime, including murder,
will be legal for 12 continuous hours.
Police, fire and emergency medical services will
be unavailable until tomorrow morning at 7am when the
Purge concludes. Blessed be our New Founding Fathers
and America, a nation reborn. May God be with
you all.
Spring Break. Yeah, technically,
I haven't really got the. We played a
show Friday night, so it's all.
All kind of leading up to that. And then, yeah, yesterday it was just like
a recovery day, basically, event. Today I woke up, I was like. Well,
technically last night I remembered, I was like, oh, I gotta record a Darren on
Sunday. So. Rented the movie real quick on Amazon
and watched it today, so it's at least real fresh in
my memory. According to Skype, you and I haven't had a conversation since
2023, which I don't know if I. I don't know if I buy that.
You know, I was wondering if.
I don't feel like it hasn't been that long, but I guess I can
look back to when the last one was.
Was it the Crow? Was it like, the end of 2023?
And then 2024 was just. I think Skype
said, like, June. So, yeah, smack in the middle of
the year. So it probably wasn't a Purge show. Yeah. Which means
it would have had to have either been a comic book show or, like,
didn't we do, like, Repo man or Hardcore Logo or something?
We did, like, a couple punk rock shows at some point. Yeah, we did definitely
do Hardcore Logo. If we did.
If we did Repo man together. That was a lot longer ago.
Yeah, I can't remember now, but I. Definitely did do repo.
Oh, God, I'm a bad host. I.
I. You know, I always joke that I'm like, you know,
a sidekick that ended up with his own show, but.
Yeah, your show's been running for a hot quite a while
now, too, hasn't it? Like, this one's almost 10 years.
Yeah, I was gonna say, like, I've been out of about 15
years this year, so yours has got to be right around there
somewhere. Yeah, it's. I think the first
episode of this was right
around the. The first Trump inauguration.
God damn, that feels like a hundred lifetimes ago.
It. You know how We, I mean, we are
his portrait of Dorian Gray. I feel like we're just
aging horribly in a closet somewhere.
Yeah, and he won't die. We all actually died during
COVID This is just Trump's horrible dream
come true. Little boy, you're going to hell.
Oh, Metallica just burst through my window.
Lars Ulrich, it just came and stole $5 out of your wallet.
The Metallicops, if you remember those videos,
it was. It might. Might have been before your time, young man.
When, when Metallica was first going after everybody
on Napster and everything. Like I think whatever website
Homestar Runner was on or something like that, like.
New New Grounds or something like that, something like that. But they had these
little short animated message
cartoons from Metallica. But it's like Lars Ulrich is
like this little tiny guy. He's like, listen up, you grab asses.
And James Hetfield is like Frankenstein. He's like,
Napster bad.
I think you'll get a kick out of them 20 years old on YouTube somewhere.
Oh yeah. If not, our archive orgs got them somewhere.
If they still exist. I don't know. Last I heard they were trying to
get. Get shut down by some.
But yeah, yeah, so that's, that's probably. That's gonna
be around. But yeah, we are. We're like five minutes in.
You're. You're rolling, right? Oh yeah, totally.
Okay, cool. I didn't get a Skype notification. I'm using the browser thing
which sounds and looks and acts exactly like Skype. Normal.
But like I didn't. I gotta push notification for the call. But not.
It doesn't say that you're recording. I'm not recording through Skype.
That's why I am. I am using. What is that?
Third. Third party intermediary which we shall not name because they're not sponsored.
Yeah, right. But it's the one. Is the one I started.
You know, I could probably do it in a much cleaner way,
but it's the way that worked and usually doesn't mess
up. So I'm recording our Skype aside. That's just you
and a side that's just me. Even though I almost always just use
the recording of the Skype, right? The stereo recording
and then I level it out. I still do all my editing in
garage. I'm a Windows boy. So like I'm
still. I still to this day use Audacity,
which some of some kind soul 15 plus
years ago told me, hey, check this out. And yeah,
kind of kind of changed my life. And it's a free program is what's wild,
too. I was, yeah, talking to. Talking to somebody about that not long ago.
And, yeah, the. The thing with technology, to some, again, like an old
man yelling at the clouds, basically, that younger people might not understand,
is that, like, this was so tricky and
so complicated and so finicky when we
all first started doing podcasts when, like, nobody was making money
off of it, the technology was almost there,
but not quite that. Like, it's super easy
for, like, people that went through that to get stuck in their ways. And,
like, when you find something that works, you really like, you'll latch onto that fucker
for years and years and years. And Audacity is definitely an
example of that. Are there other programs that do the same thing and work better?
Probably do it. Do I know how to use Audacity even though it's
had, like, a few updates over the years? Yes, also. And it, like, you know,
keeps. They keep putting out new versions of it for every time, you know,
a new Windows comes out or whatever. But it's. It's the same thing with a
lot of things. I've. I've owned the same synthesizer for a little over a
decade now, and it's. It's treated me.
I mean, it's a. It's a To program and to do stuff with,
but it's. It's been on stage many times,
and it's. It's traveled with me through. You know, it's.
It's been with me through the hard times and the good times. So I.
I've stuck with it kind of. This is probably gonna be the last time
we use Skype, though. It sounds like. Unless we record something within the next,
like, couple months or so. Yeah, I think it.
They said they're shutting down in May. They want us to move to
teams, which I have only used teams once in my life, and it was
at my one corporate job, and I hated it. It's awful.
It's atrocious. Yeah, Bandit, I'll have.
Probably have to teach me how to use that. If that's. If that's what it
is. I've been messing around with Zoom. Not a sponsor.
You claim to hate capitalism, yet you participate in it.
They. For. For, like, an account that, like, it's their full.
You, like, I was talking to somebody that, like, does the. Handles the Zoom
accounts for the college administration,
like, all throughout Wyoming, and how
much that costs, like a package deal so that,
like, you know, every administrator and teacher and whatever gets their
own Zoom account that doesn't get cut off at 30 minutes or
whatever we're talking. These are giant accounts worth,
like, tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. And,
like, for what the thing does, it kind of annoys me because,
yeah, like, you know, we. We did it the hard way back in the day,
but a lot of that. Most of that was free and
we didn't pay for it. So it's like anything when.
The more the money gets involved is when it kind of gets ruined.
Joe Rogan. Yep.
Podcasting, which maybe a small
extent might explain a little bit my. My seeming absence from podcasts.
The last couple years, we were. I don't know how much that'll make it on
the recording or ruminating. When was the last time I had done a lot of
this stuff? And I don't know, it's like,
like, many things that, like, happen to me in life.
I don't think this is so much a conscious thing. Like, there was never a
point where I'm like, I'm gonna step back from podcasting or I'm just gonna stop
doing them. Or, like, you know, with the.
With the video nasty show, Duncan doing the nasty like we
were. It was never. Never really a conscious thing where
either one of us was like, let's just stop doing this for a
year because we both want to finish that show. It's just that, you know,
we don't get paid to do this. And the things kind of
life in general just kind of takes priority and you just go in different
directions. Yeah, for sure, man.
I. Well, you know, I also haven't. You keep
jumping along, though. You put out stuff periodically. Yeah,
yeah. You know, I. Every time I think that I'm
gonna hear like, hey, are we still hosting your on the Legion
website? Like, before, like, I start to hear that in the
back of my head. Not from anybody yet. I'm like, I should probably do
something. But it's also kind of like the last year, and it's
gonna be like this for a while, but it's like, unless I did something live
or something, you know,
at the beginning of a weekend or something that,
you know, doesn't really get clipped much at all, just goes straight back out.
It's so much has been happening so
fast that it's like, oh, this is what happened. No, actually, it's changed. Nope,
that's changed. Couple that with, like, who wants to listen
to more about it and who wants to talk more about it.
Yeah. Which, like,
so I'm still in school, and one of my classes is a US and State
constitution class, and that's Kind of how I feel about that class is where is
like, dude, the last thing I want to think about,
like, when I'm, you know, paying good money to be in this
class is politics and especially Constitution type stuff
where I'm just like, well, then none of this really matters. I'm watching our
leaders just, like, wipe their ass with the Constitution on a daily
basis. So why the am I learning any of this? Like,
there could definitely be a bit of that. But your show also has
the advantage of you. You can tie stuff to movies, too, where it doesn't have
to be. You know, it doesn't. It doesn't feel so much
like a, like, current events kind of thing. Kind of like the one we're talking
about tonight that came out in 2018.
I had to look up, like, what the hell? Like, where. Where were we in
2018? Because they were trying for a little while, I think, to crank these mov
out like once a year, which I think fun idea,
but also I think puts a lot of undue pressure on the
filmmakers to kind of tie
it to current events, which this one has, like, one thing in it that really
annoyed me, those. Along those lines. But I,
I think as they go, they've gotten a little bit better about not
making them feel quite so topical because, I mean,
like, these are so. If I didn't say
already we're talking about the Purge movies again, we're back for another Purge show because
there's five of these in a TV show
and we have time to get to quite all of these.
We definitely haven't done one of these a year. Like, they were trying to do
with them as a movie series for a while. But I,
Yeah, I had not seen this one. This is the fourth one, the first purge
that came out in 2018. And I just watched this like,
two hours ago. So I, I definitely.
I. I have some thoughts. I'll go.
I'll go right out ahead and say, though, like, I, I like these movies.
They're. They're schlocky, they're really corny, they're kind of
repetitive, but they always kind of deliver on
like, some cheap thrills and like,
hearken back to more a more
lawless time in filmmaking, like when you could get away with,
you know, real kind of not subtle at
all social, political commentary in your movies and
tie it up in the pretty, I'd say easily digestible
in this case, kind of horror action package.
But, yeah, I, I dig these movies. They're. They're almost a guilty pleasure,
I would say. But I don't know.
I, I also, it kind of occurred to me today that this is probably
Blumhouse's strongest series. I've, I've not
seen the Megan movie yet.
I know they're probably gonna make 5 or 10 or however,
the many of those that they can get away and get away with in the
near future. But yeah, compared to a lot of Blumhouse's stuff, though, like,
are really the kind of their cash cows. I think the Purge movies are
kinda, I don't know, maybe it's because a lot of these came out like so
long ago and they do have, you know,
a definite political tie to them that, like,
maybe people don't revisit these very often. They're kind
of, they're popcorn flicks. They're,
they're, they're easy, easy to digest.
But I don't know, probably, maybe in a way kind of forgettable too.
But I, I always have a good time with these
ones. So what,
what about you? Why, why, why do we keep watching these movies? Derek?
Well, similarly, it's, it's the, like we said,
there's like a special spot that it, they, the series
seems to have for, for each of us. And the popcorniness
of it is that, you know,
for me, since I'm so engrossed
in all the stuff that, you know, is at the very
beginning of this movie where they're talking about the housing collapse and
the people growing disinfect, disaffected with
political parties and the presidential
candidate giving actual quotes that,
you know, presidential candidates have said and
things like that is that when all that is
really kind of going on, I find myself pulled away from the more
darker horror movies that make you
feel bad. Like the ones that just kind of make you feel bad and gross
inside. I, I tend to go more towards
those when things are a little bit better in my world.
And I go into the, like you said, most of
the purge movies, especially since they brought it out of the house, you know,
from the first one, which is more of a home invasion kind of
movie with a little bit of commentary, then it's, it's gotten more
action, horror, political, which are all
things I like. And you know, like in this one,
instead of Frank Grillo, there's the guy,
Dimitri, the drug drug kingpin guy,
is sort of like the Frank Grillo character. He's a bit of a drug dealer,
a bit of a gangster. He's got a crew and runs the streets
in this part of town, kind of. I was looking up what the actor's.
Name is Yoland Noel. Yep,
that's it. He's a pretty great leading man. And, yeah, I saw
in a lot of the, like, letterbox reviews for these. For these movies.
They're like, you're, You're. My dependence on the Purge movies depends
on how much Frank Grillo is in them. And Frank.
This is the first one back after two in parts two and three without
Frank Grillo. So this guy's kind of our stand in for him. And it's
the first one not directed by James Demonico.
Is that the guy that. He wrote it, but he didn't direct this one.
He directed the other ones before this. You know,
I'm not sure I was looking to see who did direct this one.
Like, all the producers on this one list stayed the same. Jason Plum was our
producer. All the. The Platinum Dunes characters,
Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, and those guys are all,
all, all in there. Anyway,
so, yeah, this is our prequel or this is the. The first
night where they're. They're trying to purge
out as an experiment which the. The parts
that you're describing of this movie that you like. Like the first.
It's not even the first third of this, though. Like, the setup for this is
super fast. It's like the first handful of scenes,
I would say, like, before.
Before the first Purge Night kicks off.
And so, yeah, it's kind of interesting going
back in time. Like, I, I. Again, I saw a lot of the reviews
saying that these movies can be kind of repetitive, and that's true,
but I. I don't know. I. I kind of just enjoy.
It's a ridiculous concept, for sure. Like, I think my
biggest beef with these movies is the. The parts
that you like where, you know, you get a lot of the, like, news,
talking heads, and, like, the. The politicians giving speech and stuff.
I have a little bit of a hard time taking the things that these people
are saying seriously. Like, it. It kind of over the
lines of realism a little bit, and I like, kind of
just enjoy. I kind of imagine that the camera cuts and these people just,
like, burst out laughing at the ridiculous that they just said, where they're like,
crime is legalized for the night. Have fun,
y'all. See ya.
And like, the. For me, the draw is the rest of these movies, like,
where. Where you just put, like, some, you know,
relatable, but, like, at least kind of complicated characters,
like, into the mix of this ridiculous scenario and
just kind of let them go, basically. Like, it's. It is
far below. But, you know, I don't think there's a
bad movie in the, in this batch. Like, I have my favorites, but like,
I don't think any of these, at least first four I wouldn't call a
bad movie. I agree. So far I have not seen
the Forever Purge. That is the only.
I had seen this one once before when it first came out
and it was a lot closer to being top.
I mean, it was two years into the
presidency then. It was still
very easy to imagine them, you know, doing the experiment
in, in a neighborhood that's relatively
separated from everything else by like a body
of land, body of water. In this case, it's on Staten
Island. A lot of financially
insecure people who, you know,
what, what is Marisa Tomei? Who. I didn't
recognize her. I don't think the first time I watched this. The architect scientist
lady, I thought that. Was her as I was watching it. But I
didn't, you know, fully realize until I looked it up afterwards. But yeah,
watching it, I was like, oh, it looks just like George Costanza's girlfriend.
Yeah. And you know, she's.
She'S really unbelievable in this goddamn movie. I, I will say she's one of
the weak links in this movie, I think, because, yeah, like the things that she's
saying are just like so ridiculous. She, she plays like
as a sort of like psychologist basically that they're using as
like, I don't know how to describe it.
Basically, she's just kind of the, she's the
mouthpiece for the movement that is like, basically scientifically
trying to justify the, like, this will be good for society and that like,
you know, they, they need to deliver on,
you know, scientifically verified, verifiable results
that this is, you know, something that the country needs, I guess. And it's,
it's just like, it's, it's really far fetched. I don't,
I don't buy it for a goddamn minute. So thankfully,
like it kind of railroads through this part of the movie. In the
story, they take her out pretty quick as
soon as she challenges the religious party on
skewing the results of
the test. Just like, who, who would have thought
this guy that is clearly evil as and the
leader of this. What are they called? The nffa. The New
Founding Fathers something. The New Founding Fathers
of America. Ah, there it is.
Nffa. That guy. Like,
I, I feel like they. What the hell is his name?
I feel like they. That was a bit of stunt casting because he looks
like somebody that somebody. That was super embarrassing.
The character's name is Arlo Sabian.
Oh, his name is Patch Dara.
Also seen in Captain America. Brave New World, apparently.
Oh, is that the one that just came out?
Yeah. I have not. Have not seen it. I wish I could
remember who the. This guy reminds me of. He's very
slimy. He is somebody that was in Trump's cabinet that was like
the. The person that comes out and does the. The press briefings. Oh,
like Sean Spicer. That's it. That's the one. This dude
has very, very Sean Spicer vibes. That's kind
of what I was feeling. Like, which I think is fully intentional.
He's very slimy. Yeah. And yes,
2000. He's got the forehead
of a fascist. He's got the Zuckerberg robot eyes.
Yeah. And yeah,
they hire mercenaries. They. They're gonna do what they're gonna do.
Like we said, it's very popcorn, and we basically already talked about,
like, the. That's the basic back.
Back of the box thing of this movie. And that's.
The movie's what, an hour and a half, hour and 27 minutes long.
Titan. Titan 98, I think, is how long this one is.
And if it doesn't feel it's. It's paced pretty well.
Like I said, we. We get our setup. This is the fourth movie in this.
In the series we're getting ourselves into. There's.
That. There's a few new. New elements like,
that people are being paid to take
part in the experiment. And so,
like, there, there's. They don't. I don't think they ever come
out and say it, but there's definitely an implication that, like, the more chaos,
the more violence you cause, the more. The more of a payout
you're going to get. I guess they're monitoring this all,
like, from a big control room with drones and the,
the contact lenses are. Is another thing that's, like,
super ridiculous. And like, this still doesn't even, like,
I don't think these things, like, even remotely exist. Like, they've been trying
to make contact lens cameras basically
like that for. For a long time. I don't, I don't think the technology is
there yet where they could just hand these things out. But it
looks real cool. And like, truthfully,
everybody, like, glowing eyes is definitely one of my,
like, cinematic kinks. It's definitely something where I'm just like, oh, this looks cool
as on screen. The glowing blue cyberpunk eyes.
Yeah, it's. It's. It's no different here. It's. It's very scary and
like, it's. It gets used a little bit as like a. A plot thing where.
Yeah, that's. That's a way to kind of spot people that are actively
taking part in the Purge. Meaning that, like,
they're. They're racking up kill points and hopefully getting
a fat payday out of the. Out of the deal.
Oh, yeah, we. We gotta talk about Skeletor real quick about
Isaiah. He's another one of our.
He's. He's a young man. He's. He's one of our leads in
this. He doesn't feel. He doesn't feel super duper
fleshed out. I was just looking up his actor's name.
I'm not sure how to pronounce his first name, so probably gonna butcher. This is
Joyvon Wade, I do believe.
Great, great actor. No, no offense to him, but his character doesn't
feel like his. His only real motivation. He lies
to his sister on Purge Night. She's going off to do some.
Some social activism type things and round up a bunch of people
up into a church. He lies to her that he's going to stay with family
and he stays on the island to take part in the Purge. And his only
real motivation is kind of money. And we.
We. We are set up for our villain
through Isaiah towards the beginning of the movie because Isaiah is out on the
corner like, selling rock and like, talk about,
like, it's done so casually too.
Like it's. It's like such a. A. Yeah, these are definitely
flawed characters to a degree. These. None of these people are squeaky
clean all that much, except for maybe the sister character.
She's. She's like. That's kind of her whole character is that
she was going down a bad road and now she's on the right path and
there are better ways. And I. Isaiah is a different story.
He's definitely on the wrong path, like, throughout, like the first half
of this movie, basically. And his.
His motivation to get involved in the Purge is driven by money and
the fact that they're paying people to take, quote, unquote, take part
in the Purge. But, like,
soon, soon into this, after, you know, not very many minutes on
the street of chaos.
We. His motivation is to get back at Skeletor. Who's the
dude that the. The crack feed that slashed his.
His neck towards the beginning of the movie.
Skeletor is cool as hell. Again, a totally ridiculous thing.
But these movies all kind of need a villain or two, and Skeletor,
I think, is one of the coolest ones that they've had in this. He' got
a almost like Freddy Krueger kind of personality to him.
Yeah. Aided by that puncture glove
thing that he was wearing at the Purge party.
Which he barely gets to use. I was expecting that to have a little bit
more relevance because, again, it looks cool as hell. And they went to the trouble
of that. And then, like, he. Yeah, he eventually,
like, he's. He's definitely in and on. In on it, and he's. He's gonna get
paid. And he even gets another. Another kind of cringy,
ridiculous part of this movie is he. How much attention they pay to the fact
that he got the first kill, the first Purge.
And they play it out on, like, all the major news broadcasts and,
like, the actual, like, eyeball footage of him stabbing a guy.
The news normalizing horrible things,
which they. Do, and they have been since, like, Vietnam for sure.
But, like, I. I don't know. There's there's something very,
very kind of silly, that whole thing. Like, there were
definitely. If this were to be a real thing, like,
I mean, there would definitely be a lot of newscasters
doing the. I can't believe we're showing this. This is
totally breaking my brain that we're actually showing this and this is a thing that
happened. But a lot of the newscasters just kind of like,
go. Go through, like, it's not a insane thing
that they're about to say in these movies. And it kind of
drives me nuts, I guess.
During the Purge, the FCC can't punish the news
for. This is true. Yeah. For broadcasting, the eye candy can get.
In front of the camera and just be like this.
And you know what? He. Skeletor's purging a guy that's trying to
get his. Not your using the atm.
That's not your bank transaction fees. He's like,
that's my money, God damn it. I'm getting it back.
A nice touch that. That would be more my style during the Purge is,
yeah, I'm gonna go get my ATM fees back, you goddamn fiends.
So, you know the ATM fees. There's the.
The standoff of the. The guy trying to protect his gun store
from people that want to take guns. There's what
the. God, the.
The cops beating the guy to death on first base in an empty
baseball stad. The cops are.
And they're like, yeah, they're full. Full fetish outfit,
too. Like, all. All black leather. Like,
lots of. Lots of the. The kinkier side
of Nazism in these movies, I guess, is how I'll refer
to it lots of dudes in black. Leather coats and oh,
the shiny leather coat that one has at the end.
The leather daddy Nazi guy. Yep.
Yeah, straight up. Yeah. Ronald Reagan stunt double.
Yeah. There are people out there who, yeah, this is certainly their kink.
And as I've said before on a few of these recordings,
that's what makes these movies a little bit scary is super believable.
That like, like I don't even think they would have to pay
if this was, if this were a real thing. I don't
even think they'd have to actually pay mercenaries to come out and do this.
There would be people volunteering to come out and do this in
flocks and a lot of them would be dressed in the weird Nazi
rubber, Rubber daddy coats.
Yeah, there's, there's something wrong with these goddamn people. But also,
yeah, if you throw money into the factor, then, then, then you get normal people
involved too. So. Yeah, it's just enough to push
somebody on the fence onto that side.
Yep. So yeah, the,
the rest of the movie kind of plays out pretty standard purge movie there.
There's a lot more attention. I, I don't know
if I, I'd put it that way. They, they, they definitely dropped the kid gloves
with them. The mercenaries and the,
the, the roving street militias in this movie to where they're, they're just straight up
wearing like clan robes and. Yeah. Dressed like Nazis and.
Which I, I thought was a nice touch. I'm sure in
20, just as much in 2018 as in 2025 when
we're recording this, the, the side of Klansmen and Nazis getting
killed horribly is always a welcome sight.
So yeah, these, these, these movies are big on catharsis.
Thankfully they, they're never they baddy
because we, we do get a fair amount of these dudes ending
horribly so. At the hands of the neighborhoods.
Talking about people traveling all over the place to take part in the purge.
It was like, you know, a few months ago,
a bunch of Nazis, some from Ohio, some from other
states, came and did a Nazi march in
our like gentrified arts district downtown
on a football Saturday. And they got chased out of town
and said they were never treated so poorly. And like people threw cans
of food at them and pepper sprayed and stuff. So they, they came
back to like a
hardcore neighborhood down in Cincinnati.
Like they thought that would be any better. And that's where like
their cars got, or their flags got burned and people started
having like armed patrols to protect the neighborhoods and stuff.
I Don't know if you saw any of that going. I feel like you saw.
We've talked about that in the past. I think about the art. The armed.
Yeah. The armed patrols in these neighborhoods, which. Yeah, I was definitely
thinking about during this movie a fair bit.
Yeah. About protecting the neighborhood and how the
community coming together is going to look a lot different depending on which community you're
in and how far they get pushed and how far
they get with. By people like this and people,
you know, running ice and Doji
and all. All of this fun that's currently going on. Oh,
yeah. And there was footage of the police protecting the Nazis when they went
to the Cincinnati neighborhood. And,
you know, all that fun stuff like, you know, Clark Kent
and Superman in the same room. Yep. Workforce Burn
cross. I saw. I saw the Stormtroopers standing in front of a Tesla
dealership up somewhere. I'm not sure where that was, but protecting
the. The merchandise and not giving a. About the people.
Yeah, I think that that was Chicago maybe,
but I remember. I remember the photograph you're talking about, but yeah, more. More cops
than protected the Uvalde kids. So one
thing about the Purge movies that kind of just occurred to me. How do you
feel about the portrayal of guns in these movies? Because I.
I feel like depending on.
Depending on how you look at it, the argument could be made that
these are kind of pro guns, which is a bit of
a revelation. I don't know if I'd say it's a revelation. I grew up around
guns my entire life. Like, I'm no stranger to them.
I don't particularly like them,
but I've never really been a everybody
should give up their guns kind of person. I mostly just think,
like, it should be harder to get guns in this country. And I
don't know, the. The most guns seem to fall
into the wrong hands a lot of the times, but I'm not really one to
decide these things.
But also, yeah, there's the argument of, like, the further
left you go, eventually you get your guns back
kind of thing, which I think we see play it play out in this.
This movie kind of a little bit like guns eventually
become kind of the solution. There's a big scene of all of.
Demetrius has been going back to the. The hideout or whatever.
And yeah, they've got a collection of just all sorts
of insane machine guns and handguns
and bombs and like.
And that kind of becomes the solution in this movie.
Like, they don't really. Like, there's no, like, talking your way out
of when the Roving
gangs of Nazi stormtroopers show up at your door and
start executing people. So I don't know.
How do you feel about this? Yeah,
yeah, I similarly, you know, I've, I've been
around guns. I know how to use some of them. I could probably figure
out how to use others. I definitely. The people I know that are into them
are way more into them than I am. I think when
I was younger, I thought that maybe America
could do like a. England or Australia or something like
that. And. But that's. Yeah, it's. It's beyond that and I.
More on the line of the further left you go,
you get your guns back and you
know, thinking about, you know, what,
like a lot of the California gun control laws are from when
Ronald Reagan was afraid of the Black Panthers and stuff like that.
And with this. Yeah.
In another aspect of that, staying within the, the guns
and gun culture stuff. I did kind of laugh with that when that one guy
was dual wielding AKs with
ease or something like that. That would go
well for about 0.1 seconds. Unless you got arms
like tree branches or something like.
Yeah, that ain't gonna work. It looks cool, though.
Yeah, yeah, it looks cool. And these are big on what looks cool
rather than what makes sense. Exactly. Like those two old women that figured
out how to make like exploding toys. Yeah,
see, see, I didn't, I didn't question that for, for a minute. Like,
it was just, it was just so ridiculous and made. It made
me laugh that I didn't question it for a second. But other
things in this movie, I was like, ah, wait a minute.
And I guess the, you know, Dimitri's number one
guy that seemed to know a lot about different mercenary groups and stuff.
I wasn't sure if they had a part where they talked about
him being like his head of security or
if he just so happens to know about mercenary groups because
they, they deal with a lot of sketchy
stuff or what. Yeah, they didn't really. They kind of,
I think they kind of briefly mentioned that, like, I don't know if he's like
watching. Watching it on the news or like on a, on a camera
somewhere of these dudes coming in. I think they mentioned like a.
No, I think they kill one of them and they see his tattoo.
Yeah. Is what it is. They roll up his sleeve and he's like this
with the Russian mafia or something.
Which I'll, I'll give him that. Like, maybe dude keeps up
on these things and, you know, these dudes are gangsters, so they
Gotta keep up on what other gangsters do. Yeah. And I mean long.
They. It's supposed to take place on Long Island. What they shot most
of it in Buffalo, so at least they kept that pretty close. And the
guy that played Dimitri is from New York. I saw that
Nia is from England somewhere and
doing a pretty good job. Disguising that British accent. Yeah.
And Joy, Javon or no,
Javon is from England. Sorry. The guy that
played Isaiah. Right.
And the actress that plays Nia is
from Maryland, I think, if I remember that correctly.
So a bunch of East Coasters and a bunch of Brits.
Yep. Strange.
I would have swore these are all like Toronto actors. Oh yeah.
Shot in Toronto. Let's see. Marissa Tomei's from
New York, so that's another one. She's a New York girl,
my cousin Vinnie,
and then a bunch. I mean a lot of people don't have their own Wikipedia
page, if I remember correctly.
Million dollar movie that made over a hundred million dollars.
That is certainly, certainly a way to keep your cast, your, your cost on your
movie way, way down is use the most. You get one or
two kind of known. Known names and a bunch of.
A bunch of unknowns. Basically. That's. That's a Blumhouse model working there.
Yeah. Much in this one I don't think. Like, there's not
really a weak link among this cast. Like, I actually think these,
these people are all pretty good given
the material like handed to him. Like. And I,
I also kind of think the scripts for these things get a little bit better
as they go and they feel a lot less ham
fisted. Oh, what's her face that plays
Maria LaGuerta and Dexter. I noticed
her. She's one of the neighbors with the little girl.
I just watched this like two hours ago and already I kinda.
She's one of the last people in the apartment building near, near the
end. Not the lady that lives in the hallway, but the
lady. The lady that Nia is like, you go in there and
you stay in there no matter what and you protect her. Okay. Yeah.
And the neighbor lady's like, I'm not going anywhere. You know,
I wish we had more than spatulas or whatever.
Dolores is the old lady. We gotta talk about Dolores for a second.
She shows up earlier in the movie at the. Or no.
First she gets locked out of her apartment and they complain about how much the
building sucks, which you know, gives. It gives a little bit of setup
for some other characters. And the elevator's broken. They tell us.
Yeah, goddamn elevator's broken and she doesn't have her asthma inhaler.
And yeah, Dolores is great. Later she
shows up at the church and she's stealing booze from the priest
and talking about how he's such a goddamn bar.
Got at least a little bit of a chuckle out of me. And then yeah,
later, late in the movie, in the third act, she shows
up with a pistol that would make Dirty Harry jealous. They even call
it a hand cannon, which made me laugh.
And yeah, she talks about. Yeah, she kind of disappears
out of the movie for a little bit. Yeah, she comes back and she's like
I on the way over here my purged or something.
Oh yeah. Probably giving them the
best. That's the best laugh out of this movie. That's your theater laugh
moment. Yeah, the funny smart ass old lady
neighbor that is doesn't give a anymore. I feel
like they had one of the like the exact same characters in
one of the, the Blumhouse Halloween movies which we,
we get a not subtle at all nod to
in Isaiah's bedroom with like the only decoration in
his room being this big ass Halloween 2018 poster.
All right. At least it wasn't
what Anthony Michael Hall. Just saying.
Evil purges tonight.
Oh my God. Oh boy. Yeah, we, we did not
know what was coming in 2018. Simpler times.
No simpler times.
But yeah, this, I, I, if I
was ranking these, this, this, this, this first purge,
the, the fourth entry, I ranked this somewhere
around the second one, which would be towards the top of the
list. And part parts one and three are the ones that
I like a little bit less for different reasons between
the two there. Have you, have you checked out any of
the TV series? No. Have you?
I have not. I don't. I think, I think it only ran for a season
or two and it's on, it's, it's currently on amc, which I think you
can get a, a pretty cheap bundle of like
AMC and Shutter and something else.
On Hulu at. All might end up having to do that.
I don't know. The rights for these are kind of weirdly all over the place.
I think the first one is like a Paramount movie
and then the rest of these are Universal movies or something.
Yeah, TV shows. An AMC thing which I think is also owned by
Universal, but eventually, you. Know,
Disney Core will own everything and
they'll just keep editing out Daryl
Hannah's butt crack. Disney,
Amazon, Meta X Core. Yeah. The nffa.
We own everything. You.
Oh God. Yeah. So I similarly, I feel like
this one, this one is up there. I Remembered you really liked the second
one a lot. And I think it's because that was the introduction
of the Frank Grillo. And it's
exciting. Out of these two, it's a guy. It's like totally.
It's modeled after the, like the warriors kind
of editing pace to it or like, to a lesser extent,
like Escape From New York or something like that. I think. I think the second
one just has the most exciting pace to it. Purge Election Year
came out in 2016.
I think I liked it when I first saw it and then less after I
saw it because it was more.
Things just got a lot sadder in 2016.
Like, this is too real. I don't like it. And that's when
they. I think they said the first two came out within a year of each
other and then it was almost every two years because Purge.
The first one was 2013. Then Purge,
Anarchy, the Frank Grillo saga begins. Was 2014.
Then, yeah, election year was 16. This was 18.
Forever Purge was 2021. But it was probably supposed to come out
in 2020 and the show also came
out in 2018. And yeah, it just ran for a year, so who
knows if it's even. If it even wraps up.
I'm guessing probably not. I. I think probably more a more realistic question.
I wonder if they're going to do any more movies in this series
because like you said, they've pretty consistently made them pretty good money and they
don't cost a whole lot to make. I think more kind
of the question is going to be like, where the else do you go in
this series? Like, what else do you do with this thing? Purge in Space.
Purged with samurais.
I can't do that cheap. It would probably.
Yeah, I mean, I guess can find out a little bit more if
Purge. Let's see. The Forever Purge was
initially intended as the final installment.
A sixth film called the Purge 6 is
in development, with Frank Grillo Patrick potentially reprising
his role and James Demonico returning to direct.
I had heard that Frank Grillo had said.
I think they might have both said it, but definitely Frank Grillo had said that
he would come back if James Demonaco was directing
the movie, which, yeah, would be. Would be a huge,
huge. No. Frank Grillo
maybe is a moderate draw for dorks like me that really just like
seeing Frank Grillo beat the. Out of people. But I.
I don't know that I think that would be the way to go. I just
kind of. What I'm wondering is, like, what the hell do you do with the
story at this point. Like, which obviously they're. They're being coy
about because it's an early. Early development or possibly development hell
right now, but. Right. What do you. What do you think? You got any ideas
for Purge 6? Pitch me an idea. Okay. So not knowing.
Well, I guess what I've heard about the Forever
Purge is that nobody,
like, people don't stop when the Purge is supposed to end.
So I don't know if they. If it finally stops or if it is
just the beginning. If it is just the beginning of people not
stopping the Purge. I would say Purge 6.
Even though it's right now,
it's like, what, two, three years after the Forever Purge.
You could push it a little further. Make it, you know, five years, ten years
later. Yeah. And. But that. That's kind of
just Mad Max. At least a couple election
cycles after for people to, like, maybe kind of forget about it.
Yeah. Or they're trying to get rid of the Purge. You know,
the. The opposite. The. You know, the. I feel
like the. The politician in Purge election year
was kind of like a.
A generic aoc, Elizabeth Warren
or some other type of, you know, bleeding heart liberal.
Yeah. You know, not leftist leftist, but more left
of the right. Yeah.
Like the Robert Redford in the Watchmen,
you know. Right. Isn't he the. The President
after Nixon in the Watchmen series?
I kind of thought he was the President in one of the Marvel movies.
Probably a Captain America one somewhere. Oh, he is definitely
in. In one of those, but I think in the. Did you ever watch H
I. I. Remember watching the first couple episodes of the Watchman
show, and that was 10 lifetimes ago. @ this point,
I'm pretty sure he's the President in that series because
they called reparations Redfordation.
Yeah. So. Yes. Yeah, I mean, I could see that. Yeah. He does have.
If you put him in a suit and make him read off of a teleprompter,
he's. He's got some. Some Ronald Reagan vibes.
I would. Yeah. If you liked it at all, I would say go back.
I definitely love the music that the Reznor Atticus Ross music comes up
on my. On my shuffle every once in a while. And I.
That's. That's a good one. Speaking of, I. I thought
the soundtrack to this was cool and it was unique to this movie in
the. In the Purge series. It's that Platinum Dunes.
It's a Sir Boy. I don't know if he. I don't recall if he did
the music the first ones. But Tyler Bates, the guy that did like the.
For like a bunch of like early Rob Zombie stuff
and like a bunch of the Platinum Dunes kind of remakes and
he's. He's a good composer like him and like Bear McCoy McCreary or
kind of like there are new,
new generation of kind of
genre film composers.
Yeah. I felt this one leaned into the hip hop a lot more. We even
got like a Kendrick Lamar song as the closing credits which
felt very, very timely for,
for this year. I was just telling somebody
not long ago, I was like, I remember somebody introducing me to Kendrick Lamar
that was on a podcast with me talking about Danny Treox
and like years and years and years ago and nobody
knew who the Kendrick Lamar is. If you would have told me
then, oh yeah, he'll. He'll have one of the most talked about
and watched super bowl half times and when the A
of Grammys, I don't know if I would have believed you.
Yeah, I, that was, that I think was the first time I I guess
other than this movie was the first time I knowingly heard definitely
part of the. The rap that Danny Treox was forcing on us back in
the when the midnight horror show became the movie and
hip hop show. Yeah, I mean he hasn't been in that chat in a while.
Nah, I haven't. Haven't heard from him. He's been pretty quiet.
But bless him for doing that. As one of the.
I. I struck out on getting Nine Inch Nails tickets this year, but I did
get lawn seats to Wu Tang and run
the jewels again, so. Oh, you did get it. I did get those. Those were.
They're a little more expensive than I was expecting so. But I.
We had a blast on the. Just out on the lawn last year.
I smoked a couple hits off of a forty dollar blunt and
nice. Have never been so high in my life and also realized
the blunt is really obnoxious in a public setting.
It's like lighting a campfire in your hand and everybody.
It's everybody else's problem. So we'll
be repeating that this go around we'll be a little more low key.
Yeah. And now it's. It's easier to say
like I can't share this blunt, you know,
because it's a different world now.
Germs. I don't want you to get the measles. Yep. Don't give
me your bird flu. You know what makes me sad is this was going to
be the year I really wanted to start refilling my bird feeders. More often and
getting birds in the yard and now I'm being discouraged
from doing that. Oh really? Bird flute?
Yeah. I've seen at least like some people that know about these
things talking about it where they're like we don't mostly this is
probably from people that raise like poultry and stuff.
Definitely if you got a chicken coop or raise, you know a good,
a good group of, you know, I don't know what the hell people raise
doves. Stupid like that. Yeah. They want
to keep wild birds the. Away from them because they. Bird flu is apparently
super, super duper transmissible and can apparently
go to humans and cats. Yeah.
And all the. Especially all that contact pre
with the food stuff before it's pasteurized or before.
Do they pasteurize eggs too or is it just milk?
I know they clean the shells for the most part which is why.
Yeah. Your, your fresh eggs are like brownish and you're you know,
cleaned up ones or nice shiny white. But I don't think that's doing anything
to the insides of them. I think if it's got a disease in there,
it's got it well in. The secretary of agriculture said.
I think it was Secretary of agriculture. So we still got one of those.
Well you know they're all in charge of tearing out the copper pipes
in the building before setting it on fire. They're running departments with nobody
in them. I think they said get, get,
get a chicken and raise your own eggs if you want. Cheap eggs.
Which I don't. Not everybody is equipped
to raise chickens. Not, not just like geographically like you know, that does
people who live in apartments zero good but.
Right. Chickens are more complicated than people think. They,
they are prone to disease. They're weirdly
social kind of animals. Like this is where the phrase
pecking order comes from because chickens could be really goddamn
mean to each other and will kill each other and eat each
other. So cannibal
chicken. I don't really. Unless you have a lot of
space and a lot of time on your hands, I don't really recommend raising your
own chickens. Yeah, that's my only
real experience with that though is my parents used to have them when we
were growing up for like a real brief time.
And all I really remember was the rooster was like a
huge. And would chase us as kids. Like these were kind
of for like they would go in their coop that was like fenced off or
whatever at night. But like during the day they were kind of free roaming and
the rooster would like chase us and like peck at us.
It Was just generally kind of a. And I
don't think we got to actually like butcher any of those
chickens. I think coyotes ate all of them.
Yikes. So something else to keep in mind.
Chickens. Chickens attract predators and a lot of things eat and
like chickens and their eggs.
I have never really lived out
where you could have a chicken coop sort of thing,
but my mom was a teacher when I was a
kid, so a lot of holiday breaks we would have
the, the egg incubators because I.
I don't know when they stopped doing it. But you know how. I don't know
if you know how, but when I was in
school, I felt like there was always one. One year where you all hatched
an egg. Yeah. Or yeah, for like the science
project, basically. I'm pretty goddamn sure we did this as kids.
But also I grew up around a bunch of farm kids, so it might have
just been something like one of my friends, his parents were doing or something.
But either way, yes, I. I am familiar. So there
would usually be those incubators plugged in,
you know, over, over the holiday break at, at the house. Especially when she
was a full time teacher. Not so much when she was a substitute teacher.
Makes me wonder what happened to those chickens. Yeah, right. Where do
they go after they get hatched to the class? You know, it's summer break.
I think they go to the literal farm and they become chicken
nuggets or. Yeah, just send them down to the cafeteria.
Picture of a lunch lady from the Simpsons.
Three dozen chickens in her kitchen.
One of those giant paper cutter machete
things that they have in the teacher's lounge. She's gotta work with what she's got
budget cuts and all that.
Oh. So, yeah, I think we did.
Well, we can keep going, but I think we kind of talked about the
movie and the things and we had little tangents here and there.
Yeah, we did. We did neither of the two things that we usually do when
we talk about movies. We didn't go for 10 minutes and then,
you know, two hours of other stuff. And we also didn't go two hours about
the movie. That's 90 minutes. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think we're
finally hitting our stride. Near the end of the Purge series.
We still have one more. Yeah,
but you're. You've been a busy, busy human lately.
Yeah. Just put out. Put out an
ep. Yeah. We've been playing in the band for.
For the self. For the self promotion segment of the show. The band. The band
is called Hospital Property. It's me and my Friend Brandon.
He writes the lyrics and plays guitar and
plays bass guitar, and I do pretty much everything
else. I program the drums and I play synthesizers, and I do
a lot of the mixing and like, backing track type.
For our live shows, we.
We. We got a tour kind of like at least partially locked
in for early, early June of this year.
Uh, it's gonna start. I think it's going to start
in Salt Lake City, and we're gonna kind of work our
way over to. We have shows for sure booked in Salt
Lake and Portland and
Yakima, Washington. I'm pretty sure there.
There should be a few more dates added there. But. Yeah, look for us at
your. Your local weirdo DIY place.
The. It's. It's gonna be. It's gonna be a lot of fun
because we've been added to a lot of different kinds of bills. Like one night,
I think in Yakima, we're playing a goth night. Oh,
fun. Which we're not technically a goth band.
I've always. I'm always so bad at
this, like, describing what the hell we are. It's kind of a weirdo blend
of like, noise rock guitar and like noisy
industrial, synthy, dark wave kind of.
So, I mean, you could throw us like this. This show that we just played
last Friday night. Most of the other bands were like punk and metal stuff.
Stuff we. We do pretty well as far as that goes. We can play like
another one of the tour stops is an experimental night,
I'm pretty sure, so probably be played with like some just straight up,
like, harsh noise. Like it.
We. We. We go there, wherever.
Wherever places will have us. We could tailor a set to kind of. I'm just
waiting for us to get invited to play like a bar mitzvah or something Nice
kids birthday party. Record it. The Me first and
the Gimme Gimmes recorded a live album in a bar mitzvah,
and I think they just recorded another one at a quinceanera.
You go where the music goes. Exactly. You don't turn down
a pain gig unless it's your. Your shady cousin
with the mohawk that they're. They're all right,
but they're all right. Boots and braces, you know,
just play the older stuff. They're technically extremely far
left. All right,
Tadpole? Did we ever do that on your show Green Room? Surely.
Surely we did. I think Vanessa and I did that one.
Oh, no. Who the hell did I do Green Room with? I don't even remember
now. I think one of Duncan's shows, I. Think you had one of
the. Yeah, because I wanted to have it. And I was like, well,
at least Mark got it. Yeah. Summer Series 2015.
Maybe the last year of my life that felt like
anything was making sense or going well. I don't
know about that. No, actually like I'm feeling kind of the reverse of it.
I'm feeling a bit of deja vu back to like 2020
where like professionally and
like for, for me personally things
are going pretty well. And like that's,
that's hard when the rest of the world is just like
going up in flames. Like it seemed to be in like 2020.
Like I, I actually felt pretty okay like where I was in life.
So of course the rest of the world is like, nope,
show. Not gonna have it. It's is one endless dumpster fire
after another. So yeah, me, me and my dreams
get put back on the back burner and more years go by.
But wow. Yeah, this should be a good year. I mean I'm excited
about the tour.
Gonna take summer off from school because I need a break real bad.
Actually my classes this year haven't been so bad. Yeah, the one constitution
class and two music classes, one of which is about
soundtracks and one is in an in person one where
we're in the college's studio which is like actually really
nice. And they, they've spent a ton of money on this
like couple really. The music building in our, in our community
college is only a couple years old and it's like really nice
and the dude, the dude that teaches has been
there for years and years and came super, super recommended.
So yeah, that's, that's been a really cool class and I've learned a
lot in there so far. As I was joking with my band mate Brandon,
I was like, I wish I would have taken this class before we released a,
a five song lp because I would have definitely done a, done a few things
differently that were very easily explained to me.
Like when I'm just like sitting in there and I can hear it and my,
my instructor twiddles the knobs a little bit and is like, see how this
is different? And yeah, it's, it's been, it's been
really cool. It's, it's. It's kind of too bad
that those are, those are elective credits that I'm earning there towards my English
degree and I don't think I can get it. I haven't really
looked into the music programs too much. I don't know, I'm a little scared to
take like music theory and stuff like that where I
have to have like, it's, it's a lot less about like feelings and emotions
and a lot more math kind of feeling.
And I, Yeah, I, I feel that learn.
Learning the let. Because this was you guys first recording you put out together.
Yeah. So those, yeah, that first one or those first few have to
have those things. Like, like, I think the second
EP I was ever on, my hi hat was broken.
So I used the, the ride symbol for
almost everything. When you listen to it, there's barely any
hi hat and there's so much ride. There's five or six.
Noticed this but like if you hadn't told it, people listening
to it like might not have been something they noticed. Yeah. So.
Which like seems like a good thing but like actually like sometimes
you just need constructive criticism and you just need somebody to tell you like,
hey, your shit's broken and it sounds like hot trash or your mix is
too loud and things. Things like that, like,
which you don't get until you've done a few of
these. Like, honestly, like I think a lot of sound guys will
if they know it's like one of your first couple shows or something.
Like they'll maybe not put as much effort into it, let you,
let you make some mistakes. And I don't mean that in like a malicious way
or anything, but like that's, that's how you learn sometimes
you gotta, you gotta play the shows the bomb before you play the ones that
are like, you know, really good. Yeah. Yeah,
for sure. So. Well, that's awesome, man.
You got a lot of. I'm. I'm glad you and I had the chance
to talk. It's always a little bit easier than typing
things out here and there. Yeah. And yeah,
gotta. Got a little thing for your, your folks at home to listen to.
I, I do think doing the nasty will probably come back
at some point, but other than that.
Yeah, music is kind of taking the focus and I don't do a whole lot
as far as podcasting stuff goes. I don't even really like listen to
way a lot of it. I get a lot of listening time in my day
to day and a lot of that's, that's a lot of that's taken up by
music. I try and you know, listen to new as often as possible.
But. Yeah, I, I appreciate that you, you're.
You're still going 10 years later and you know, you're one of
the few people on this planet that I will always, I'll always stop by
and have a chat and talk about some stuff and watch some movies
and. Yeah, nice. We could always do a comic book
movie if we want to do something before next
March. I haven't seen that Crow remake yet. I hear it's
God awful. I forgot that that happened.
I think one of my friends was like
the one person I, I heard who like, after he saw the
trailer, he's like, am I the only person that thinks that looks pretty good?
And then I think he saw it and was like, nah, it was not good.
Yeah, every, everybody else you pretty universally hate in it, which was
a. Is a shame. Like I, I, you know.
Yeah, it's hard to do worse than the sequels in that series,
but. I don't know, it sounds like maybe they managed,
but. Yeah, they're still making comic book movies.
It seems like it slowed down a little bit. We could always go go
in the backlog. I, I was just thinking about the Toxic Avenger remake
and I realized, oh, that's not based on a comic book. That's a, that's a
trauma movie that was also a cartoon. Oh, right, yeah.
Howard the Duck. Oh, yeah.
Girl walks home alone at night. Is that a
comic book? I've. Well, I don't know if it was a comic book first,
but I've got the comic book. Oh, no. Yeah, I found it at
a independent bookstore. It's, you know, black and white.
I'll send you a couple screenshots or something.
Yeah. I had no idea that it was a graphic novel. I might have to
check. Check that out. Yeah. So if
I forget where I put it, the cat started to chew the COVID up,
so I put it somewhere. Yeah.
But well, we got some choices.
Or, or I'll come back for like a punk rock thing. Yeah. Something music before
your tour. Yeah, yeah. Tours in June. So we,
we got some time to talk about it and think about it, but. Yeah.
You know I'll always come back for you, baby. Oh, yeah.
Feels just like home. Better luck next
purge.